Legal Commentary

Lens Louse: NYU Professor To Have Camera Installed In Back of His Head

Posted on November 17, 2010
NYU Professor Wafaa Bilal finally has the solution for all of those spit balls that come flying whenever he turns his back in class: he is having a camera implanted in the back of his head. That’s right, a camera. It is part of a project commissioned by a new museum in Qatar which will [...

Pelosi Prevails

Posted on November 17, 2010
As expected, outgoing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has prevailed in retaining the top leadership position — a surprise move after many, if not most, pundits expected she would resign after the devastating loss of at least 61 seats and record low popularity ratings for both herself and Congress...

Parody or Pilfering? Court to Decide What?s What (In The Butt)

Posted on November 16, 2010
Brownmark Films is suing “South Park” creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker in a case that seems right out of one of the South Park scripts. The court will decide whether Stone and Parker stole copyrighted material from “What What (in the Butt) — a music video that went viral...

Alito Criticized For Participation In Another Conservative Fundraiser

Posted on November 16, 2010
Last night on Rachel Maddow, I discussed the controversy over Supreme Court justices attending political fundraisers. Specifically, Justices Scalia, Thomas, and Alito have been criticized for their participation in such events. Most recently, Justice Samuel Alito was identified by Think Progress at a fundraiser for American Spectator...

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Pennsylvania Passes New Castle Doctrine Law

Posted on November 16, 2010
We have long followed trend toward “Make My Day” and “Make My Day Better” laws (also known as “Castle Doctrine” laws) allowing homeowners to kill anyone who invades their homes (here). Some of us have been very critical of these laws as unnecessary and based on a misrepresentation of both the criminal and common law...

Hate Speech Versus Free Speech? Michigan Teacher Challenges Discipline Over Removal of Two Students From Economics Class

Posted on November 15, 2010
This is a terrific speech given by 14-year-old Ann Arbor student Graeme Taylor who is defending Howell High School teacher Jay McDowell, who was disciplined after throwing out two students for anti-gay statements. The controversy, however, gets a bit murkier on closer examination for free speech advocates...

Do You Want Butter With That Bronson?

Posted on November 15, 2010
In England, four prison officers were injured after discovering Charles Bronson naked in a gym and covered in butter. Ok, this might need a bit of explanation. Bronson, it turns out, is England’s most violent prisoner — a man who has spent nearly all of the last 36 years in prison for one violent crime [...

Vanity O Vanity, Thy Name is Usher

Posted on November 15, 2010
In Manchester, New Hampshire, a woman has learned the costs of vanity . . . well at least vanity plates. Bonnie Usher, 43, allegedly was careful to hide her face in a hooded sweatshirt when she robbed a Rite Aid.  The problem was the getaway car:  her car boasted vanity plates reading “B-USHER...

Hold the Fries: Did Burger Joint Get Raw Deal on Moby Dick Nuisance?

Posted on November 15, 2010
Steptoe & Johnson has prevailed against a burger restaurant, Rogue States, after the law firm complained that the fumes from the restaurant made them all smell like short-order cooks. Indeed, one of the firm’s “rainmakers” even reportedly threatened to resign from the firm if the burger smells were not removed from his office...

Maryland Attorney General Seeks $60 Million Fine Against GOP Consultant

Posted on November 15, 2010
Maryland Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler has moved to fine a GOP political consultant to former Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (left) for thousands of false calls to suppress the vote in the recent governor’s race to help out Ehrlich. Republican political consultant Julius Henson and his company Universal Elections sent out thousands of calls [...

Surfin?

Posted on November 14, 2010
Surfin’ Today we have The Beach Boys in glorious STEREO! Best enjoyed with headphones/earbuds to get the full stereo effect. -David Drumm (Nal)

Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See??I See Anti-Marxists Looking at Me!

Posted on November 14, 2010
Part I Earlier this year, the Texas State Board of Education removed children?s author Bill Martin Jr. from a proposal to include him in the third-grade curriculum section.  Martin would have been put on a list of authors who had made cultural contributions?along with Laura Ingalls Wilder and Carmen Lomas Garza?until board member Pat Hardy made [...

Hannity & Barton on Con Law: Required Reading at Tea Parties

Posted on November 14, 2010
Minnesota Republican Congresswoman Michele Bachmann has a knack for saying just the right thing. She famously educated Chris Matthews on the merits of guilt by association saying ”?usually we associate with people who have similar ideas to us, and it seems that it calls into questions what Barack Obama’s true beliefs, and values, and thoughts are…I am [...

How Kittehs Drink

Posted on November 14, 2010
I had always heard that the cat formed a “J” with its tongue and used the back of the tongue to ladle-up the liquid. However, the reality is much cooler. Kittehs use sophisticated physics to create a column of liquid and quickly close their mouths around the column in an efficient drinking maneuver...

Daddy I Do

Posted on November 14, 2010
Filmmaker Cassie Jaye’s debut documentary, Daddy I Do, which won the 2010 Best Documentary at the Cannes Independent Film Festival, deals with the “purity” culture. In this culture young girls pledge their “gift” of virginity to daddy...

Say It Is So, Joe!

Posted on November 14, 2010
Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio has been the right-wing poster boy for tough law enforcement. Subjecting his prisoners to spoiled food, tent villages in scorching heat, pink underwear, and then launching criminal investigations against public officials who challenged him just added to his “Walking Tall,” tough-cop credentials among his backers...

Faux Phallus Far From Flacid

Posted on November 13, 2010
Carolee Bildsten (left), 56, of Gurnee Illinois, has been charged with aggravated assault for threatening a Chicago police officer with a “rigid female pleasure device.” The officer was unharmed as he deftly deflected the devilish device. After allegedly skipping out of her dinner tab at Joe’s Crab Shack, police found the allegedly intoxicated Bildsten lying [...

Boehner?s Billionaire Buddies

Posted on November 13, 2010
John Boehner, the presumptive next Speaker of the House, is standing firm on his call for extending the Bush tax cuts, for everyone, permanently. Compare that with David Axelrod who said that the Obama Administration, in order to get tax cuts for the middle-class, would accept an across-the-board tax cut, temporarily...

A Well Respected Man

Posted on November 13, 2010
A Well Respected Man Today we have The Kinks in glorious STEREO! Hope you haven’t mothballed your headphones/earbuds. -David Drumm (Nal)

Careful What You Witch For: US Bishops Need More Exorcists

Posted on November 13, 2010
Overwhelmed by the demand for exorcisms, U.S. Roman Catholic bishops are putting out the word that “Exorcists Need Apply” and that training in Baltimore is being held today. Down to only six U.S. exorcists the “Good Shepherds” hope to raise that number to 122...

Snow Globe Causes Airport Evacuation: Can Garden Troll Hysteria Be Far Behind?

Posted on November 13, 2010
It was cinematic magic when a dying John Foster Kane uttered the famous word, “Rosebud,”  as he let fall the snow globe down the stairwell  shattering it into scores of broken pieces. Officials at Bradley International Airport in Windsor Locks, Connecticut, aren’t movie buffs it seems...

Tiger, Tiger, Burning Not So Bright

Posted on November 13, 2010
William Blake may have stood in awe of the ferocity and power of the great cat, but modern man sees quite a different thing. British-based Traffic International, a wildlife preservation group, reports that despite the international ban on the sale of tiger parts, over 1000 tigers have been illegally killed in the past decade...

Seventh Circuit Allows ?Death By Taser? Suit to Proceed

Posted on November 13, 2010
Reversing a lower court grant of summary judgment, the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals has allowed a Wisconsin couple’s “Death by Taser” suit to proceed to trial against the police and Town and Village of Mukwonago, Wisconsin. Their son, 29-year-old, Nickolos Cyrus, suffered from a bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, and was well-known to the [...

Better Say Your Prayers, Father!

Posted on November 13, 2010
Some of you may recall reading Professor Turley?s recent post about a Massachusetts priest who allegedly stole more than $80,000 from his parish to support his pornography habit. Well, there?s a new story about a priest in Spain who is alleged to have saved more than 20,000 pornographic images of children on his computer...

A Twinkie Diet Poem

Posted on November 13, 2010
Earlier this week, Professor Turley wrote a post about the ?Twinkie Diet.? That story inspired me to pen a silly poem on the subject of Mark Haub?s junk food regimen for losing weight.   Eating junk food every day Can melt your excess pounds away. Count calories?it?s simple as that? And you?ll be able to [...

San Francisco Bans Happy Meals and Other Fast-Food Meals Served With Toys

Posted on November 12, 2010
The San Francisco Board of Supervisors have approved a ban on Happy Meals and other fast-food servings that fail to meet nutritional standards. While sympathetic to the motivations behind the legislation, I have serious questions over the constitutionality (and logic) of the ban...

New Policy Questioned After Chinese Officials Face Huge Butt Costs

Posted on November 12, 2010
Chinese officials in the central city of Xianyang thought that they had a simple means of solving the problem of cigarette butts on the streets: offer residents money for each butt collected and turned in as part of its effort to win the “National Clean City” award...

Meet Mark Siebenmorgen: Our Mugshot of the Week

Posted on November 12, 2010
Yes, this will be our mugshot of the week. Not since the mugshot of Sirius Black from Azkaban has a prisoner made such an impression. Mark Siebenmorgen, 46, was arrested in Milwaukie, Oregon for terrorizing town residents. Who would have guessed? What is remarkable is that the police in the small town of Milwaukie had [...

Blowing Your Stack: Ohio Demolition Goes Bad As Children Run To Escape Falling Power Lines

Posted on November 12, 2010
The decision to use explosives to take down the 275 foot smokestack of Edison’s Mad River Power Plant in Ohio seemed like the perfect event for children until . . . I am a bit surprised that children were invited to stand under power lines when that was clearly the primary risk associated with this [...

Middle School Student Told To Remove American Flag To Avoid Racial Tensions

Posted on November 12, 2010
There is another bizarre story out of our public school system where a school official at Denair Middle School in Sacramento, California told 13-year-old Cody Alicea to remove an American flag from his bike because of fears that it would trigger “racial tensions...

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